Patricia Wynn, Chief Health and Care Strategy Officer at , Tunstall Healthcare, provider of connected care and health technology, explores the ethical challenges of integrating AI and digital technology into care.
Our reactions to technology are deeply personal, especially in digital health. While some might welcome in-home monitoring systems for peace of mind, others see them as unwanted intrusions.
While these concerns are valid, we should not panic that such advances will replace human interaction. Care is, and always will be, rooted in human-to-human engagement.
But as we innovate further with AI-enabled digital care, we have an ethical imperative to design digital systems that enhance rather than replace human connection, to mitigate these concerns.
These innovations are bringing long-standing questions about ethical digital care to the fore and forcing us to respond at pace. As we do so, it is our responsibility to take digital care users with us, to ensure that concerns do not act as a barrier to life-saving and life-improving solutions.
Ethical Complexities Around Individual Consent
As telecare becomes more sophisticated and data-driven, facilitating informed consent for this technology is a growing challenge. This is especially true for vulnerable people, such as people with dementia, or for mental health patients who may be experiencing specific issues around paranoia.
Data literacy is a critical part of informed consent for monitoring technology – that is, a sufficient understanding of the concept of data and an ability to apply it to the given situation.
Data literacy is necessary, and not-one-sized fits all. Everyone who interacts with the patient and the technology has a role to play in guaranteeing the ‘informed’ part of consent. This requires additional training on the part of care providers for their staff, and additional information from telecare providers.
In Denmark, Tunstall colleagues have taken a human-centred approach by training retirees as installation technicians. As technician Gert Eriksen-Nielsen noted, being “on the same wavelength” with customers has transformed what could be an intimidating technical process into a reassuring human exchange.
Ethical System Design
While increased understanding of AI-enabled care for care staff and patients is important, these goals cannot be achieved just from the top down or by focusing on individual uptake.
We have to consider what preventative healthcare means. In my view, it means we need to move from a medical approach to a person-centred one. Using technology – generative AI or otherwise – to support a more predictive model of care, must not simply replicate the thought processes we apply today and make them digital.
Balancing Innovation with Human Touch
It’s worth noting that for most telecare users, direct interactions with AI are likely to remain limited. Instead, they will experience more face-to-face support as a result of the reduced burden on care staff.
AI is already helping with collecting, sorting, and analysing data, but needs a medical or care professional to diagnose and support patients.
In Spain, Tunstall is implementing proactive, personalised care solutions which pre-empt care needs before they arise. This is achieved by recording daily activities and scanning for abnormalities in established patterns of behaviour.
For instance, changes to everyday activities such as meal routines, bathroom routines or sleep routines, can be indicative of health issues – such as social isolation or depression if the person does not leave their home, or cognitive impairment if the person is carrying out activities at unusual hours. The system frees up the care staff’s bandwidth, creating focus towards meaningful interactions, rather than routine checks.
The potential benefits of digital care, particularly when enhanced by AI, for care of elderly and vulnerable populations are enormous. But we’ll only realize realise them by staying true to our core purpose – caring for humans. By designing ethical digital systems that enhance rather than replace human connection, we can create a future where technology, telecare and compassion work hand in hand.
